


Works and Days

by Wishme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, Domestic, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:55:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wishme/pseuds/Wishme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an unspoken understanding that Cas and Sam do the grocery shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Works and Days

It's an unspoken agreement that Dean isn't allowed to do the grocery shopping. After the debacle with SucroCorp, Sam knows Dean will put anything in his mouth and while Dean might be able to smell a quality diner from two interstates away he doesn't know from a picking fresh vegetable. Cas is easily recruited to Sam's team on this, equally appalled at the mass of pork products and sugar the hunter shovels into his body when they’re on hunts, regardless of how well the man can cook when he’s in his own kitchen. They have a plan.

 

Ever since they settled at the bunker, Dean has taken to announcing that a given day is "Saturday". It bears no real relation to the actual days of the week, instead  more of a concept of needing a break; taking a weekend. This week's Saturday is Thursday and Dean celebrates by sleeping in. He does this every Saturday. And that's when Cas and Sam go shopping.

 

There's a Walmart in the next town over, but after reading up on their employee practices the boys decide to stick with local business as much as they can. Luckily, they're in farm country and it's not terribly hard to find what they need, even if eating seasonally takes getting used to. Robertson's Farm is always their first stop, often their only stop. Old Man Robertson owns the place but his daughter Molly runs it, leaving him to smoke his pipe on the porch, eyeing customers though half-slitted lids. The boys nod in his direction as they enter, the older man's gaze never lifting a fraction. Molly greets them as soon as she hears the door bang open, her hard-edged “Took your time” colored with what could be affection. The shop space is barely more than an expanded farm stand set towards the front of the property from the farm house with screen mesh to keep the bugs out and a roof to ward off the infernal August heat. Charcoal hair scraped back into a bun, her smile shark-sharp but friendly as she roots through a crate of okra, "The usual for you boys?"

 

Sam nods in assent, sliding up next to her to grab the crate and lift it where she directs. It's a dance they do: Sam carries the heavier crates and rearranges the top shelves, Molly often asking him to undo whatever work he’s done the last time just to get his goat. He’s happy to do it and she always slips something special into their crate. "You're a couple days too early for peaches, but I've got you an assortment of lettuces, tomatoes, young garlic, leftover root veg, snap peas, okra, radishes. That bag’s got fruit: blackberries and apricots mostly, but some strawberries too. I even threw in some figs for your friend there. And a small touch of honey, Esther tapped her new hive.” She levels a long look at Sam, "You know, if you came by on the regular this’d be a lot easier."

 

He grins sheepishly. The last time she mentioned it was after they'd been out on a hunt for three weeks. He'd shown up finally, lines of worry in her face easing as she thrust the crate into his chest, offering a gruff  "At least you're not dead. Who's been feeding you, huh? Skin and bones," before stalking to the back of the store, where Cas ran beans through his fingers, laying a light hand in his shoulder and earning a smile in reply. Sam's pretty sure she doesn't know what they do, but he's never asked and she never says anything, but she regularly  packs their crates with assortments of herbs that have come in handy more often than not and not in the kitchen.

 

Today, though, it's business as usual. Sam lifts crates as Cas walks by the bins, touching everything. Every so often he'll raise something up and Molly will supply a name, sometimes without looking, eerily aware of his progress. He dips his hands into the lentils, letting their crisp shells beat against his skin as they fall, admires the dirt-crusted grooves of the carrots, the smooth curve of the sweet pea pods. Afternoon sunlight filters in striking his profile just so, haloing, and Sam's breath catches. These days it's easy to forget that Cas wasn't raised in the back seat of the Impala; that plaid and denim and blood weren't always his uniform. It hits Sam deep in his gut, the guilt and regret, tempered only by the serenity that the former angel exudes, his eagerness to explore the contents of the store as if each item was something new and precious.

 

Cas breathes in the dirt and sunshine and smiles as the soft flesh of the apricots yields, juice welling in the indent left by his thumbnail. Sweet and slightly sticky, it tastes of summer. Just like the apples tasted of the coming fall and the squash of the dead of winter. Hands driving over colors of the stone fruit, brighter than the sharp greens of spring and russets of fall produce, Cas wonders at his Father’s bounty. So much has been said about the parts they played, angels and humans, but nothing about the swell of the seasons, the way these shoots burst up from the earth each year without fail, trusting in the promise of the earth and the sky that their needs will be fulfilled, only to be plucked from the earth and reborn again. Constancy, like nothing Cas has seen in all his millenia, ensconced in one globe of sugar and water, fed by sunshine.

 

After last crate is hauled away, Molly sends them off with a perfunctory pat on the back, blushing when Sam leans in to kiss her cheek, “You take care now. Stop by soon and I might have some of those peaches for you.” Nodding to Old Man Robertson, the hunters kick up dirt on the way back to the Impala, nestling their goods in the backseat. Cas holds the package of berries on his lap to keep them from bruising against the hard ruts of the road, the rush of the wind broken only by the sound of passing cars hurrying to the opposite end of nowhere.

 

Back at the bunker they stow the goods in the fridge, the root cellar. Cas remarks on the unopened boxes of canning jars for the millionth time and Sam figures he’ll find the man wrist deep in them at some point over the next few weeks, especially if he makes a note of how much he likes preserves at the breakfast table. They’ve fallen into a routine, the lot of them. Dean does most of the cooking, using every speck of vegetable they bring into the kitchen even if he still makes comments no one believes about hating them. Cas helps sometimes, mostly keeps Dean company, unless he finds something he absolutely  _has_ to make and then the brothers leave him to it. After trying pickles for the first time a few weeks ago Sam figured the repeated questions about the jars would go somewhere. Sam makes complementary noises, helps with dishes and keeps the kitchen stocked. It’s a fair trade all around, really, and it’s comfortable and domestic in a way he’d never expected to find.

 

Everything stored for the week, they head upstairs to split at the maproom, Cas to find Dean no doubt still curled up in their bed, Sam to pour over the heretic texts he fell asleep over the night before. Toeing the door open, Cas peers into the room to find Dean awake, glasses perched on his nose, reading a well-thumbed copy of  Yevgeny Zamyatin’s _We_ they’d picked up from the used bookstore. He shrugs out of his jacket and throws it over the chair, aware of the heavy stare following him across the room. He sinks into the mattress, scooching over so that his shoulders edge up against Dean’s freckles, leaning over to press a kiss to the man’s temple. Dean smiles and sets his book aside, his hand coming up to take the other man’s. “You left early.”

“Mmm. Farm run.”

“Anything good?”

 

His smile is incandescent. “Everything.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of hubris naming this after Hesiod, but when a classicist writes something bordering on bucolic you take what you can get. Works and Days can be found here [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0132]


End file.
